July 3
  
THE CONCENTRATION OF PERSONAL SIN 

"Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips." Isaiah 6:5

When I get into the presence of God, I do not realize that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense; I realize the concentration of sin in a particular feature of my life. A man will say easily - 'Oh, yes, I know I am a sinner'; but when he gets into the presence of God he cannot get off with that statement. The conviction is concentrated on - I am this, or that, or the other. This is always the sign that a man or woman is in the presence of God. There is never any vague sense of sin, but the concentration of sin in some personal particular. God begins by convicting us of the one thing fixed on in the mind that is prompted by His Spirit; if we will yield to His conviction on that point, He will lead us down to the great disposition of sin underneath. That is the way God always deals with us when we are consciously in His presence. 

This experience of the concentration of sin is true in the greatest and the least of saints as well as in the greatest and the least of sinners. When a man is on the first rung of the ladder of experience, he may say - I do not know where I have gone wrong; but the Spirit of God will point out some particular definite thing. The effect of the vision of the holiness of the Lord on Isaiah was to bring home to him that he was a man of unclean lips. "And he laid it upon my mouth, and said Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." The cleansing fire had to be applied where the sin had been concentrated.

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Sin is a specific attitude which is manifest in a very specific way.  God reveals to us this specific sin when we are in His presence and only moves us to the next level of awareness of sin once we yield to His conviction.  If I desire to live a life devoid of sin, I must submit to each conviction of sin as God reveals it.  God will not reveal the next sin until I agree with Him on this one and submit it to His cleansing fire.

If I am not being convicted of sin consciously, I cannot be in the presence of God.  But in the presence of God, I will be convicted of it.